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The Victoria Chronicles

**Chapter 09

Caged**

Vix looked around the cell the deputy had placed her in before turning back to face said deputy as he closed the bared door.

"Cozy. When do I get my continental breakfast?" Vix said sarcastically.

"Sure, laugh it up. We'll see how funny you are when the sheriff gets through with you." He said. Vix looked him up and down noting certain details. Details such as the cocky walk he had and his mannerisms. Yup, she was dealing with the new guy. Not much point trying to convince him of how he let three dangerous men loose to abduct more town's folk. Besides, she had already tried that. He was out to prove something. That in itself was not such a good thing, best to just play along for the time being.

"No? Then little Miss Trouble, let's start with your name." he said.

"Victoria." Vix replied.

"Last name?"

"Don't currently have one. Shall we make one up?" she replied.

The deputy grumbled under his breath before continuing. "Moving on. Where do you live?"

"Here on Earth. Why? Where do you live?" Vix said straight faced.

"I'm being serious!" he said raising his voice.

"I'm not." Vix said plainly without the barest hint of a smile.

"Arrgg! Why don't you have any ID? Or anything on your person for that matter?"

"Lost it. Hey! You're a cop! Put out an APB on that! I'd like to have that back." Vix said with just a slight bit of enthusiasm.

"Grrr! I don't have time for this bullshit! I'll let the sheriff deal with you!" he said as he turned to the cell room door. "I have better things to do!"

"Oh hey! Wait a minute! I do remember one thing!" Vix said before he had a chance to close the door.

"What's that?" he said with a bit of enthusiasm.

"I like the ones with the sprinkles!" Vix said with a bright friendly smile. She was answered with the cell room door being slammed so hard that she felt it through the floor.

"Well...that was productive." Percii said after the deputy's stomping foot falls died away.

"Hold that thought." Vix said. She reached into her pocket awkwardly with her hands still in handcuffs behind her back and withdrew the multi-tool she had used last night. Pointing it towards the one and only camera in the room she focused an invisible beam at it and shortly afterwards there was a small pop and the red light faded out.

"Ok. Now we can talk. Couldn't tell if the camera had audio or not." Vix said as she shifted back to her regular form.

"So you decided to short the whole thing out? Picture and all?" Percii asked.

"Eh. Better safe than sorry." Vix replied.

She grunted a bit from the headache that had been slowly coming on during her ride in the back of the deputy's car and only getting worse as he wasted time trying to find anything dangerous or identifying on her person. Of course Vix had put everything on her in her pocket dimension so he came up with nothing. This brought on a whole lengthy interrogation about who she was, all the while her headache got worse.

"So tell me, why were you giving him such a hard time?" Percii asked.

"He arrested me before I could find out any useful information from those three assholes!" Vix said in irritation. "Then he let them go without asking even a single question."

"True. But you could have explained things to him."

"Really, you think so?" Vix said as she paced around the small cell and looked around at the details of the room. "You think an egotistical jarhead dropout would listen to a thing I had to say without even questioning those other three before letting them hobble off?"

"Well, when you put it that way." Percii said dubiously.

"Trust me. He wouldn't believe me at this point if I told him the sky is blue." Vix said sitting down on the narrow bunk. She bent over and folding her legs passed her cuffed hands under her feet and in front of herself where she could be more comfortable and able to do something if the need arose. "Incidentally, he was supposed to remove the cuffs before putting me in this cage."

"You could easily break both those and the door and leave you know." Percii pointed out.

"What? And have the local police hunting me instead of the criminals responsible for all the missing people? I need them on my side, not against it." Vix said. "Besides, as annoying as he is he really is just doing his job. Just in the jerkiest way possible."

"Point well made." Percii said.

Vix reached into her pocket and withdrew the muti-tool again and while holding it in her mouth aimed the end at one of the cuffs keyholes. There was a click and the cuff came undone. She then put the tool back in her pocket and pulled out the three pistols she had liberated from the three G-men.

"I thought you said that you wanted the police on your side? Now you're going to shoot your way out?" Percii asked confused.

Vix started disassembling the pistols one by one. "I'm not going to shoot my way out, I'm making these safe." She said as she continued with her task.. Eventually she got to what she was looking for and pulled the firing pins out of each pistol before reassembling each one. Once back together she tucked the pistols away in her pocket again while holding on to the pins.

"There," Vix said tossing the pins in her hand up and down lightly. "No firing pins, no bang bang."

"You seem familiar with firearms." Percii observed.

"I've shot a few times at shooting ranges." Vix replied pulling herself up the back wall and looking out the window before lowering herself back to the floor again. "I'm just not into the whole pointing them at people thing." She replied, "Especially not at me." She said flatly.

"When did we get a new deputy? Did you know Ed?" Pops asked as he drove down the road.

"I did not. But I can't believe he just let those three suits go and arrested that girl for trying to stop them!" Edward said. "I also can't believe that she went in alone in the first place. What is she anyway? I've never seen anything like her before."

"She's a mechanical wizard and a good person. And don't underestimate Victoria, she is more than capable of taking care of herself. Believe me." Pops said.

"Well the two of you came at the right time." Ed said before asking in a more concerned voice, "Do you think she will be ok?"

"Oh I suspect she'll be fine." Pops said turning off the town's main road to its other main cross street. "I'm more concerned about that new deputy. Vicky's been under a lot of stress lately and, well...let's just say it would not go well if he riles her up too much and leave it at that."

"Where are we going anyway?" Ed asked looking around the street.

"We're going to find Sheila." Pops said scanning the parked cars along the right side of the street, "I know she always starts her day getting coffee at this little deli around he--There she is!" Pops exclaimed when he spotted a familiar early-model Explorer with the town's police decals.

Sheila was just coming out of the deli with her coffee when she heard pops honk his horn to get her attention. He had pulled up behind her cruiser and rolled down the passenger side window.

"Oh hey Pops, Edward. Uhm, who's running the store Edward? I thought your afternoon help would be in till, well, afternoon?' Sheila asked a bit confused.

"Well, there's been a bit of an altercation." Pops said from the driver side as Sheila walked up and rested an arm on the passenger side door.

"What kind of altercation?" Sheila said, her eyes narrowing slightly. "Where's the officer on duty?"

"That's one of the things we need to talk to you about." Ed said. "There were these three government type looking men in my store this morning, and they were trying to take me away somewhere."

"Ok." Sheila said, "So the deputy on duty arrested them, right?"

"No." Pops said, "He arrested Victoria."

"Why? What was she doing there?" Sheila asked, she was darting her eyes back from one man to the other as they filled her in on the event, trying to keep up with the conversation."

"She stopped them from abducting me is what she did. And then your guy arrested her without getting the facts and let the three go!"

"He what!" Sheila said in surprise.

"He did." Pops said from his side of the truck. "Arrested Victoria and let the three go without so much as one question as to what had happened."

"Where are they now?" Sheila asked.

"The three men or you officer and Victoria?" Pops asked.

"All of the above?" Sheila said.

"Your guy took Victoria in handcuffs down to the sheriff station." Ed said, "Don't know where the other three went. They went off in the other direction and Pops and I came looking for you."

"Ok, follow me down to the station so we can clear this up." Sheila said before turning towards her SUV. Pops backed up his truck to give her room to back out of her spot then followed her down the road to the sheriff's station.

Vix was starting to lose patience. The longer she was cooped up in this jail the colder the trail would be to find the three men from the hardware store, and hopefully her friends. She kept reminding herself that she needed to be patient, but not having anything to do in the cell was making her antsy.

At least with her enhanced hearing she could hear what was going on in the main office, but unfortunately there wasn't much going on there either. Occasionally a radio would go off in a burst of static, or she would hear the deputy pacing around as he too was waiting for the sheriff. But it seemed it was a slow day. That was a good thing overall, but Vix was getting quite bored.

So to pass the time she decided to learn more about the multi-tool. Pulling it out of her pocket she let the device link with her mind. How that worked she had no idea, but as she played with it scanning her surroundings she discovered something that Percii hadn't mentioned earlier.

The device was partially sentient.

That made a kind of sense, sort of. It was an incredibly advanced tool after all, but to learn that it was a rudimentary intelligence was still a bit surprising.

The tool would periodically make little whistles and chirps. To the average person it was little more than small sounds easily mistaken for natural noises that would be assumed the device made while functioning. What it was actually doing was singing to her in its own little language. A language Vix could understand.

As she waved it around in slow arcs around the cell the device sang out what it was detecting. Vix hardly even needed to look at the holographic screen to know what was being detected.

"Fascinating."

"What is Lady Victoria?" Percii asked.

"Hmm, what? Oh, nothing really. Just thinking out loud." Vix replied.

Vix went back to her musings. Out of boredom she waved the tool above the surface of the handcuff still dangle in's from her left paw. With one eye on the screen and an ear cocked to listen to the small chirps and hums from the device she learned the molecule count, the atom count (Woah that's high!) it's metallurgy, and even a structural analysis of its strengths and weaknesses, and a comparison it her strength and the strength of the steel.

"Huh, Percii's right. I could snap these things like they were made out of cardboard!" Vix thought to herself.

As she was thinking of the applications her ears suddenly perked up at new sounds coming front the front of the building. She recognized the sheriff's voice as she asked the deputy what had been going on this morning as well as the hardware owner interjecting about the true story and what really happened.

"Welp, sounds like we're about to get visitor's Percii. I guess I should look the part." Vix said

"Yes, probably best to not scare the humans." Percii replied.

"You do remember that I am human? Right?" Vix said reproachfully.

"Were human." Percii corrected. "But I concede your point Victoria. I'll try not belittle the natives."

Vix ignored Percii's conceited tone and shifted to her human form. She could feel the start of another headache coming on. She needed more practice at this, but she also realized she need a break too. She had been shifting back and forth a lot today and the lack of experience was giving her headaches. Hopefully this would not take too long and she could go back to the farm where she wouldn't need her disguise for a while.

Sheila gave the impression of calmness as she walked through the front doors of the station, followed by pops and Edwin. She gave a brief look around and spotted the deputy sitting at the duty desk. Zeroing in like laser she headed straight to him.

"So Terry, anything interesting happen this morning?" Sheila asked politely.

"Well I made an arrest on this girl that was fighting three other men sheriff." Terry replied proudly."

"They--" Edwin start before Sheila held up a hand to silence him without taking her eyes off Terry's. Her face was smiling, but her eyes were not.

"Hmm, yes. So tell me about this girl." Sheila asked.

"Well when I came in she was standing over them holding a baseball bat as a weapon." Terry recounted.

"Did you see her swing it at them?"

"Well...no, not as such." Terry replied.

"Did you question her?"

"Oh yes. She claims that the three men started the whole thing when they were trying to abduct Edwin." Terry said before adding, "Of course I didn't believe a bit of it."

"So you also questioned the three men. Right?" Sheila asked.

"Er, no. It seemed pretty cut and dry sheriff." Terry replied. He was starting to feel quite uncomfortable. Like when a child has been found out about something and their mother is grilling them in the knowledge that they will self-incriminate themselves. Also he recognized that despite the fact Sheila was smiling she didn't seem too pleased with what she had heard so far. He also didn't know why Edwin and pops were here and weren't congratulating him on his collar.

"Did you ask Edwin here what had happened in his store leading up to your arrival on at the scene?" Sheila asked, but with a hint of growing irritation.

"Well no, he wasn't in the store when I arrived." Terry replied just a bit sheepishly.

"Did you ask him afterwards?" Sheila pressed on.

"Well, no. I arrested the girl and took her here and put her in a cell. She hasn't been very cooperative."

"Did she put up a fight?"

"No."

"Was she rude or try to escape?"

"No sheriff."

"Did she do anything but follow your commands?" Sheila asked.

"No sheriff. She followed every order, did everything I asked her to do, and other than refuse to give me straight answers or any relevant personal information she's been fine." Terry said as he started to feel the ground metaphorical shifting under her feet.

"So in actuality she hasn't so much been uncooperative, but in fact has been cooperative?" Sheila asked. Now her face was starting to match her eye in subtle ways. Like the way she was no longer smiling.

"Er, yes sheriff?" Terry said.

"So let me get this right. You responded to a call at Edwin's hardware store, you found three men and this girl. You arrested the girl and bought her here but the only person you've questioned so far has been the girl. You didn't question or detain the men, and you didn't ask Edwin what had happened in his hardware store. You just arrested the girl and that was it. Am I correct In The Facts?" Sheila said saying each word as its own sentience.

"Uhm, yes sheriff." Terry said. Now he realized that his arrest wasn't the victory he thought it had been.

"So in what way do you think that any of that story is real policing and not just totalitarianism!!" Sheila said in a very angry voice.

"Er, well...when you put it that way..." Terry trailed off.

"We'll talk about this more later! Where is she now!" Sheila commanded. It was not a voice that Terry could defend against.

"Back in the cells sheriff!" Terry said snapping to attention.

"Show Me!"

By the time the group made it back to the cells where Vix still was she had already taken on her disguise and clicked the cuffs back into place, although for the sake of comfort she did keep her hands in front of herself.

"Here she is sheriff." Terry said stepping out of the way.

"Yes yes." Sheila said dismissively, and to Vix she said, "Are you ok Victoria?"

"I'm fine, just a bit disgruntled with the system you have here." Vix replied.

"Hmm, yes. I don't blame you." Sheila said, "It would seem certain details were missed or glossed over."

"That's one way of putting it." Vix replied.

"Terry, open the cell already." Sheila said turning to the deputy.

"Oh um, let me just go and get the keys." Terry said before hurrying to the front office space to retrieve them.

"I'm sorry about my officer." Sheila apologized to Vix through the bars. "I'd say that he's new, but I don't feel that's enough for his actions." She said genially.

"It's fine. Believe it or not I've dealt with worse than him. He's just trying too hard to prove himself." Vix replied, dismissing the matter entirely. "At least he shows initiative. Now if he would think this out a bit before jumping in I think he may turn out alright."

"Perhaps..." Sheila said, a bit confused by Vix's calm demeanor. "Now while we wait for Barney Fife to get his act together and return with the keys why don't you tell me your side of the story?"

As Vix recounted the events at the hardware store Edwin pulled Pops aside briefly. "Hey Pops, a word please?"

The two men walked down the cell row a bit for a quick private conversation.

"Ok Ed, what's up?" Pops asked.

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but when she came in to get those three goons off me I could swear that she looked very much like a two legged fox." Edwin said glancing at the human looking Vix before looking Pops dead in the eye. "Now, you wouldn't try to lie to me after all these years, and I know my mind ain't gone senile. So what the straight truth?"

"The straight truth as I know it is that she is what you saw in your store. But she is also what you see here now. What I'm about to tell you stays between the two of us. I'm only telling you this cause I know I can trust you to keep this under your hat." Pops said, "I can trust you can't I?"

"Of course." Edwin said a bit confused about all the secrecy. Pops wasn't known for all this cloak and dagger stuff. Not since his army days anyway. Edwin never asked but he knew that there were a few things in Pops military career that he kept mum about.

Pops gave him a very brief account of Vix's condition, at least what she had told him anyway. He suspected that she was holding some information back, but he didn't want to press her about it. If she the need to tell him it would be in her own good time, if not, well that was fine too. He was by all standards a good judge of character and he felt that she could be trusted. And Edwin should too.

"That's quite the story. I can see why she would want to keep it that way." Edwin said after the brief explanation about Vix's looks. "Don't worry, I'll keep quiet about it. From the sounds of it she's got enough on her plate as is.

On the other end of the row Vix was just finishing her deposition to Sheila. "All right, that match's up with what Pops and Edwin told me. If Edwin had the sense to put camera in his store I'm sure they would match up too." Sheila said, "As soon as Terry gets back with the keys you are free to go. But I may have questions for you later."

"I'll be glad to answer them. You know where I'm staying." Vix said.

Just then Terry returned with the cell keys and unlocked Vix's cell. Vix held up her hands so that he could unlock them.

"Right, now that that is cleared up, can someone remove these cuffs?" Vix asked presenting her cuffed hands in front of her.

"You heard the lady," Sheila said, "You put them on, you take them off."

Terry patted down his pockets before looking up sheepishly, "Uhm, I think I left them on my desk."

Vix let out a long sigh before continuing in slight annoyance. "Right, enough of these silly games."

Snap!

Tink!

Tink!

There were a few pops of metal chain giving way under pressure before two more sounds of metal shearing apart were heard. When Vix was done removing her from their bindings she gently grasped one of Terry's hands and simply placed the mangled and broken handcuffs in his open palm.

"Next time you decide to handcuff someone," Vix said, "Make sure they deserve to be." Her voice was sweet and peaceful. Her eyes, less so.

"Now then, Pops, shouldn't we be getting over to see Frank?" Vix said as she brushed by the dumbfounded Terry. "I want to see what's left of Bens Jeep."

"Yes ma'am." Pops said as he suppressed a laugh at the way Vix had put Terry in his place without so much as laying a finger on him. While all eyes were still on the confused deputy Vix quickly pulled out the multi-tool and with a quick wave of it turned the security camera back on before leaving the cell blocks.

Terry was looking at his mangled cuffs in bewilderment and testing the strength of the metal himself while Sheila took Edwin aside to get a statement from him about the incident at his store. Terry tried to bend the metal himself but had no luck at budging the hardened steel. He shouldn't figure how she had done it. And these were brand new too.